Calculating age-adjusted cancer survival estimates when age-specific data are sparse: an empirical evaluation of various methods

A GondosDepartment of Epidemiology, German Centre for Research on Ageing, Bergheimer Str 20, Heidelberg 69115, GermanyBr J Cancer 94:450-4. 2006

..We have illustrated that a recently proposed alternative method of age adjustment involving the use of balanced age groups or age truncation may be useful for enhancing calculability and reliability of adjusted survival estimates...

..Much of this progress remains unaccounted for in traditional estimates of long-term survival rates, which essentially reflect the survival experience of patients who were diagnosed many years ago...

Up-to-date long-term survival curves of patients with cancer by period analysis

Hermann BrennerDepartment of Epidemiology, German Centre for Research on Ageing, Heidelberg, GermanyJ Clin Oncol 20:826-32. 2002

..Using data of the Finnish Cancer Registry, we provide an empirical assessment of the use of a new method of survival analysis, denoted period analysis, for deriving more up-to-date survival curves...

..I aimed to assess achievements in cancer patients' survival by an alternative method of survival analysis,known as period analysis, which provides more up-to-date estimates of long-term survival rates than do conventional methods...

..Application of period analysis may be particularly useful in the field of childhood cancer as it may help to prevent patients, their families and clinicians from being burdened by outdated, often too pessimistic survival expectations...

Combining cohort and period methods for retrospective time trend analyses of long-term cancer patient survival rates

Hermann BrennerDepartment of Epidemiology, German Center for Research on Aging, Heidelberg, GermanyAm J Epidemiol 159:252-8. 2004

..The H. pylori-gastric cancer relation may be much stronger than previously thought, and H. pylori infection may even be a (close to) necessary condition for development of noncardia gastric cancer...

..Finally, epidemiologic methods should be more widely used for studies of medical and nursing care, and results of epidemiologic research need to be more effectively transferred into the practice of prevention...

..In this study, we applied a new method for up-to-date analysis of long-term survival to evaluate if and to what extent these patients still have any excess mortality compared to the general population...

Recent increase in cancer survival according to age: higher survival in all age groups, but widening age gradient

..We conclude that long-term survival expectations of cancer patients have increased in all age groups in the 1990s. However, for most common forms of cancer, the age gradient in survival has either persisted or widened...

..Over the last decades, long-term survival rates have substantially increased for many forms of cancer. However, these improvements have often been detected with substantial delay by traditional methods of survival analyses...

Reduction of clinically manifest colorectal cancer by endoscopic screening: empirical evaluation and comparison of screening at various ages

..Repeated offers of screening examinations could provide substantial additional benefit with the levels of compliance to be expected in practice, but they would have to be weighed against the increased risks and costs...

Reduction in selective under-ascertainment bias in population-based estimates of cancer patient survival by age adjustment

..Age adjusted estimates were less biased in most scenarios, which may be an additional argument for application of age adjustment in the analysis and reporting of population-based cancer survival rates...

Age adjustment of cancer survival rates: methods, point estimates and standard errors

..We find that both methods provide almost identical results for absolute survival but the new method generally provides more meaningful estimates of relative survival with often a smaller standard error...

Further enhanced monitoring of cancer patient survival by stage-adjusted period analysis

..Obesity is a well-known risk factor for several diseases. This study aims to analyse the associations of BMI with TL and the rate of TL change in older adults...

Inverse association between a pro-inflammatory genetic profile and Helicobacter pylori seropositivity among patients with chronic atrophic gastritis: enhanced elimination of the infection during disease progression?

..There is increasing evidence of frequent clearance of the infection during progression of CAG. We aimed to assess the association between host inflammatory polymorphisms and H. pylori seropositivity among CAG patients from Germany...

The association of cyclin D1 G870A and E-cadherin C-160A polymorphisms with the risk of colorectal cancer in a case control study and meta-analysis

..In this large cohort study of older adults, serum 25(OH)D levels were inversely associated with incident diabetes in women but not in men. The association was particularly strong in subjects with renal dysfunction...

Kidney graft survival in Europe and the United States: strikingly different long-term outcomes

..In diagnostic studies promising results were shown for myeloid related protein-14 in serum and urine. However, confirmation in longitudinal population based studies is needed...

Household contacts were key factor for children's colonization with resistant Escherichia coli in community setting

Susanne LietzauDepartment of Epidemiology, German Centre for Research on Ageing, Heidelberg, GermanyJ Clin Epidemiol 60:1149-55. 2007

..coli) can lead to life-threatening situations. Epidemiological data on the prevalence and major determinants of carriage of antibiotic resistant E. coli among children in the community setting are sparse...

Low risk of colorectal cancer and advanced adenomas more than 10 years after negative colonoscopy

..There is little empirical evidence available about the optimal interval for screening, making this a subject of debate. We associated the prevalence of advanced colorectal neoplasms with time since negative colonoscopies...

Is vitamin D deficiency a cause of increased morbidity and mortality at older age or simply an indicator of poor health?

..Coronary heart disease (CHD) is one of the most common long-term complications in people with type 2 diabetes. We analyzed whether or not gender differences exist in diabetes and CHD medication among people with type 2 diabetes...

Mutant-enriched PCR and allele-specific hybridization reaction to detect K-ras mutations in stool DNA: high prevalence in a large sample of older adults

..The risk of colorectal cancer after a previous negative colonoscopy is very low. Nevertheless, interval cancers occur. We aimed to assess the characteristics and predictors of interval cancers after negative colonoscopy...

Gender specific temporal and cross-sectional associations between BMI-class and symptoms of depression in the elderly

..The aim of the study was the gender specific analysis of cross-sectional and longitudinal associations between body mass index class (BMI-class) and symptoms of depression in a representative sample of elderly German people...

Epidemiology of chronic kidney disease: results from a population of older adults in Germany

..Our results support suggestions that smokers are at an increased risk for cognitive impairment in older age; that the risk increases with duration and intensity of smoking, and subsides with time after smoking cessation. ..

The diagnosis of a smoking-related disease is a prominent trigger for smoking cessation in a retrospective cohort study

..g. awareness of hypertension, number of types of antihypertensive drugs, comorbidity), and health-related quality of life (HRQOL) in a large cohort of patients with hypertension, over a follow-up period of 5 years...

Temporal predictors of health-related quality of life in elderly people with diabetes: results of a German cohort study

..The aim of the study was to determine predictors that influence health-related quality of life (HRQOL) in a large cohort of elderly diabetes patients from primary care over a follow-up period of five years...

Prevalence and determinants of exocrine pancreatic insufficiency among older adults: results of a population-based study

Dietrich RothenbacherDepartment of Epidemiology, German Centre for Research on Ageing, University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg, GermanyScand J Gastroenterol 40:697-704. 2005

..The prevalence and main determinants of exocrine pancreatic insufficiency were investigated in a large population-based sample of older adults by measuring pancreatic elastase-1 in stool...

Helicobacter pylori infection, interleukin-1 gene polymorphisms and the risk of colorectal cancer: evidence from a case-control study in Germany

..To derive age and sex specific estimates of transition rates from advanced adenomas to colorectal cancer by combining data of a nationwide screening colonoscopy registry and national data on colorectal cancer (CRC) incidence...

Epidemiologic findings on serologically defined chronic atrophic gastritis strongly depend on the choice of the cutoff-value

..03-12.15) and for women exposed to >23 pack-years of spousal smoking (OR: 3.02; 95% CI: 0.99-9.28). Our findings do not indicate a major impact of ETS on CRC risk but suggest that risk may be increased following spousal exposure...

Expected reduction of colorectal cancer incidence within 8 years after introduction of the German screening colonoscopy programme: estimates based on 1,875,708 screening colonoscopies

..Projections from model-based analysis may contribute to improved timeliness of monitoring of concurrent trends in population-based cancer survival in cancer registries operating in different populations and socioeconomic environments...

Population-based prevalence estimates of history of colonoscopy or sigmoidoscopy: review and analysis of recent trends

..However, our results provide evidence that CRC subsets may be affected. If confirmed, this knowledge may be used to assess individual susceptibility and to target potential measures of cancer prevention...

The mother as source of Helicobacter pylori infection

Maria WeyermannDepartment of Epidemiology, The German Centre for Research on Ageing, Heidelberg, GermanyEpidemiology 17:332-4. 2006

..To further elucidate the intrafamilial transmission of Helicobacter pylori infection, we investigated the occurrence of infection by parental infection status in a large community-based birth cohort of children from Germany...

Validity of self-reported endoscopies of the large bowel and implications for estimates of colorectal cancer risk

..58), and reasonable for year of examination (kappa = 0.70). Self-reports of previous colorectal endoscopies agreed well with medical records, but validation appears to be essential with respect to details of the examination...

Quality of life over 5 years in women with breast cancer after breast-conserving therapy versus mastectomy: a population-based study

..We aimed to compare ovarian cancer survival in Philippine residents, Filipino-Americans and Caucasians living in the US, using a high resolution approach, taking potential differences in prognostic factors into account...

..Screening recommendations for colorectal cancer (CRC) commonly take family history but no other risk factors into account. We compared and assessed risk factors of colorectal polyps in a large population undergoing screening colonoscopy...

..This study supports the hypothesis that smoking for a long duration at a high cumulative dose increases the risk for colorectal cancer, particularly among women, and suggests that there is risk reduction after longterm smoking cessation...

Role of infected parents in transmission of helicobacter pylori to their children

Dietrich RothenbacherDepartment of Epidemiology, The German Centre for Research on Ageing, HeidelbergPediatr Infect Dis J 21:674-9. 2002

..The aim of this population-based study was to determine the role of parental infection status in transmission of H. pylori to the child by taking into consideration the infection status of both parents simultaneously...

Relationship between infectious burden, systemic inflammatory response, and risk of stable coronary artery disease: role of confounding and reference group

Dietrich RothenbacherDepartment of Epidemiology, German Centre for Research on Ageing at the University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg, GermanyAtherosclerosis 170:339-45. 2003

..We also investigated whether the choice of a larger reference group might affect the results, and whether or not seropositivity to multiple agents was associated with a systemic inflammatory response...

Helicobacter pylori and hepatitis A virus infections and the cardiovascular risk profile in patients with diabetes mellitus: results of a population-based study

Mercy OngeyDepartment of Epidemiology, German Centre for Research on Ageing, University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg, GermanyEur J Cardiovasc Prev Rehabil 11:471-6. 2004

..pylori strains provokes major systemic inflammation. The mechanisms underlying the inverse association between H. pylori infection and serum albumin and the clinical relevance of this finding require further research...

Alcohol as a gastric disinfectant? The complex relationship between alcohol consumption and current Helicobacter pylori infection

H BrennerDepartment of Epidemiology, German Centre for Research on Ageing, HeidelbergEpidemiology 12:209-14. 2001

..pylori infection. At higher levels of alcohol consumption, the antimicrobial effects of alcoholic beverages may be opposed by adverse systemic effects of drinking, such as adverse effects on the immune defense...

Homocysteine and methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase genotype: association with risk of coronary heart disease and relation to inflammatory, hemostatic, and lipid parameters

D RothenbacherDepartment of Epidemiology, The German Centre for Research on Ageing, Heidelberg, GermanyAtherosclerosis 162:193-200. 2002

..We performed a case-control study to investigate whether tHcy levels and MTHFR genotype (677 C-->T mutation and 1298 A-->C mutation) are associated with CHD under special consideration of the possibility for confounding...

Are patients diagnosed with breast cancer before age 50 years ever cured?